CHAMPIONING CREATIVITY SINCE 2007

Review of the Year: Want to see our 100 most popular posts this year? Starts right here

It was only a few weeks ago that we made a list about the highs and lows of the end of the year lists which we were being bombarded with from all sides. Now in true It’s Nice That style, we’re here to bring you ours, which is not only (probably) longer but also (I imagine) much sillier and nicer to look at than any of the other end of year lists you’ve read. Welcome to our Review of the Year 2013! And kicking off our Top 100 most popular posts from the past 52 weeks, we have numbers 100-91 for you to recall, sigh over and then revel in all over again. Enjoy!

100 – Maciek Janicki: Paper City (July 1)

Here’s Maciek Janicki to deliver perhaps one of the most enchanting ways to kick off our Review of the Year, with an animation which might actually have you rubbing your eyes with your fists in childlike enchantment. His Paper City animation, a stop motion film which shows an entire city made of paper unfolding as a tiny car drives through tested the tricky boundaries of stop-motion, not to mention the things you can do with some origami skills, several reams of A4 and patience by the bucketload. www.itsnicethat.com/articles/maciek-janicki-paper-city

99 – Made Thought: Colorplan for GF Smith (March 6)

Made Thought: Colorplan for GF Smith

Made Thought had eyeballs swivelling over to their website earlier this year when they produced some truly lovely graphic design in the form of GF Smith’s Colorplan series. Their identity included slick business cards, a swatch book and an impressive website, too, in what looked to be an exciting new step into the digital realm for Colorplan. Fantastic design, plain and simple. pat on the back to you, Made Thought!www.itsnicethat.com/articles/made-thought-gf-smith-colorplan|

98 – Steven Spielberg: Obama (April 29)

How’s a roll call like Barack Obama, Tracy Morgan and Steven Spielberg for an all-star cast to blow any idea for a comedy sketch out of the water? Steven Spielberg stole most of the spoof thunder this year with Obama playing Daniel Day-Lewis playing himself in a super slick clip. Worth a watch if only to watch the American president practising his double finger point in the mirror. www.itsnicethat.com/articles/obama-spielberg

97 – Rose Blake (January 11)

Rose Blake: In the Gallery

It’s strange to think it’s been a whole year since we cooed over Rose Blake’s website update, but indeed it has, and unsurprisingly enough all the brand new work she plonked on there back in January still looks as fresh and ovally as it did back then. The illustrator has carved out a lovely niche for herself since we admired her as one of our Graduates 2009, with a host of exciting projects, from gorgeous observations in galleries to great editorial work. www.itsnicethat.com/articles/rose-blakes-updated-website-isnt-it-looking-lovely

96 – 150 London Underground Posters (February 19)

Alfred Leete: The Lure of the Underground (detail)

With comparatively strict limitations on what they’re allowed to exhibit, you’d think that the London Transport Museum would have gotten bored of putting shows on by now, but the depth and wealth of Transport for London’s enormous archive supplies more excellent collections that we can shake a stick at. Earlier in the year they dug 150 fascinating underground posters out and hung them on the wall for us to admire to celebrate the Tube’s 150th birthday, and the nostalgia-inducing graphic design which they displayed was gorgeous. Timeless characters, experimental typography and rich in references to British history.www.itsnicethat.com/articles/150-london-underground-posters

95 – Josh Bogdan and Ryan Lasko: The Pixel Painter (July 25)

Oh God, here’s an art and design story to melt even the sternest of ice-cold hearts. 97-year-old Hal Lasko was once a graphic artist in the days before digital took over, but his deteriorating eyesight left him struggling to continue creating images. Until he discovered MS Paint, of course, which allows him to paint with pixels. Josh Bogdan’s beautiful film is a heart-rending tribute to this man’s extraordinary life, and the incredible effect that computers have had on it. www.itsnicethat.com/articles/the-pixel-painter

94 – Mark Draisey: British Public Schools (February 6)

Mark Draisey: British Public Schools

I’m wholly unashamed to admit that I love any book, photograph, film or song even mildly concerned with British schooling, which is probably explained by the fact that I’ve spent the better part of my life happily squirming in its clutches. This photo-series about some of the poshest public schools in England by Mark Draisey is a prime example of what I love; croquet on the lawn, stripy trunks and more mahogany than Ron Burgundy would know what to do with. It falls somewhere between Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers and Hogwarts on a scale of one to charming. www.itsnicethat.com/articles/mark-draisey

93 – Focus Features: Moonrise Kingdom Annotated Script

Focus Features: Moonrise Kingdom Annotated Script

Wes Anderson ruled our hearts yet again in 2013 – in would be foolish to deny it – and here is one of several reasons why; an illustrated, annotated script of his huge success Moonrise Kingdom, complete with diagrams of the school-play set, photographs of Wes in thigh-high wellies directing the water scenes and various drawings of tunnels and forests. Oh Wes.www.itsnicethat.com/articles/moonrise-kingdom-annotated-script

92 – Matthew Frost: Fashion Film (February 7)

2013 has been the year of the arty farty affected fashion film, and the anti-version that Matthew Frost directed for fashion brand Viva Vena! does a fantastic job of taking out every single self-indulgent cliché. From the typewriter, little-known 1960s bands and vintage paperbacks to sun-dappled shots, flower crowns and quirky knick knacks, Lizzy Capaln does a fantastic job of bringing the ridiculous muse to life. Piss-taking at its absolute best.www.itsnicethat.com/articles/matthew-frost-fashion-film

91 – Alex Chinneck: From the Knees of My Nose to the Belly of My Toes

Alex Chinneck has continued to grab our attention this year with the large-scale public art installations that he casually unveils, to uproarious reception from locals and viewers, and then disappears again into the undergrowth to create more. There are few artists around with either the inspiration or the determination to carry out such enormous, impressive works as this one, in which he appears to have slid the entire front facade off a house in Margate, so we can only applaud him.www.itsnicethat.com/articles/art-alex-chinneck

Further reading:

Posted by
Maisie Skidmore

Assistant Editor Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 and has stayed with us ever since. She has a particular interest in art, fashion and photography and is a regular on our Studio Audience podcast.

This week’s most viewed articles

This won’t be the best-shot, best-edited film you’ve seen all day but it’ll definitely be the most exciting. Volvo (the car manufacturer) have just released a luminous paint that’s invisible during the day and then brightly fluorescent at night as soon as car headlights bounce off it. Spray it on your bike, helmet, clothing – maybe even your face – to make sure you’re lit up like a Christmas tree whenever you set off on nighttime rides.

Got the mid-week hump-day gloom, friend? Allow me to do away with it for you with a bumper-pack of animated GIFs by the talented hand of illustrator and animator Julian Glander. He once came up with a clever app which transformed colour data into sound for an eight-note synth and made us all into synaesthetes for a day, which was intricate and complicated enough to warrant a dose of fun to follow. A gang of tiny blob men whirling their arms over their heads at impossible speeds? Yes, please. A tiny man on a bicycle riding in tiny circles forevermore? Go on then. Great things are in the pipeline for this master of 3D shapes, bulgy eyeballs and jumping hamburgers. You mark our words.

When I sat down to write this article I was planning to discuss Ardéchoise illustrator Marion Fayolle’s impressive career to date; her numerous books for the likes of Nobrow and Magnani Editions; her editorial work for The New York Times, her textile designs for Cotélac and Kiblind and of course her very own illustration publication Nyctalope which she co-runs with Simon Roussin. And then I remembered she did a brilliant book of saucy drawings, Les Coquins, and decided to focus on that instead.

Good news everyone, you can now get access to the Printed Pages archive online! It’s been ages since we sold out of the last few copies of our first four issues and if we’re honest, we’ve been getting nostalgic for all those lovely articles we published way back in 2013. There was that interview with Sagmeister & Walsh when they’d only just made Jessica a partner, our racy chat with Dian Hanson about her career in pornographic magazines, the time we found out who put a massive crack down the middle of Tate Modern and our sunny visit to Geoff McFetridge’s LA studio.

FKA twigs has become the poster girl for everything that’s contemporary and cool. Her music is cutting edge, her style is unmatched and her videos always cause a stir. This new one is no different; directed by the artist herself in collaboration with Boots, Glass & Patron features a pregnant Twigs giving birth to a sea of colour in characteristically creepy settings. Cue a seriously heavy bassline, voguing in the woods and a cast of characters part human part cyborg who round things off nicely. If I’m honest the first minute or so almost lost my attention, but the rewards of the second half left me slack-jawed and wide-eyed. Now hold that pose for me…

Most recent articles

Prepare your mouse-clicking finger for what might be the best collaboration since Madonna, Britney and Christina Aguilera snogged live on stage – Google Maps has transformed into an interactive and completely playable version of Pac-Man, and it’s bloody brilliant. You can take the yellow-faced protagonist to your local high street, New York’s Time Square, or hop right over to Niagara Falls and run riot in those streets too. Basically, wherever Google can go, you can play.

So you know how we provide you with multiple hits of arts and design goodness week in week out and ask BASICALLY NOTHING in return? Well we’d be forever in your debt if you could spare five minutes to take part in our latest audience survey. We have some big plans for the next few months but we want to make sure that whatever we do is rooted in what our readers want and expect, and so we’re super-keen to hear your views.

Ricky Gervais is a figure who splits opinion and for every acolyte who hails him as the saviour of contemporary comedy, there’s plenty more who just can’t stand that laugh. I happen to be in the former camp and I am also a fan of postmodern advertising, so these new spots for Optus push pretty much all of my buttons. Commissioned to promote the Australian telecoms company bringing Netflix Down Under, Gervais is on typically obtuse form, whingeing about the expectations put on him, shamelessly plugging his own successes and revelling in his own unprofessionalism. Your views on Gervais will dictate your reaction to these, but if like me you enjoy his posturing then there’s plenty here to enjoy.

When I was 14 music merchandise was pretty much all I thought about. My rucksack was covered in patches emblazoned with band logos, my T-shirts were exclusively black and baggy, showing off my love for Nirvana, Mudvayne, Papa Roach and a whole heap of rap metal bands I’m frankly embarrassed by today, and I’d be up in Camden every weekend adding to my collection of Judas Priest weed grinders that I was never actually going to use. I was Simon Tam’s target audience.

Earlier this month we hosted an illuminating evening of talks themed around the “pursuit of brilliance” to mark the UK launch of the HTC One M9. The sold-out event saw digital pioneer Nicolas Roope, writer and architect Sam Jacob, body architect Lucy McRae and HTC Creative Director Daniel Hundt share their insights into how creative thinking can surpass the mundane and predictable to become something truly special.

Merging the fun of the playground with the beauty and cerebral qualities of art, a slide will transport visitors to the Hayward Gallery entrance this summer thanks to the forthcoming Carsten Höller show, Decision.

Somewhat lazily I’ve included an image in this post that concisely explains exactly what Moscow Sans is, who’s created it and why – which pretty much negates this whole piece of text. But in truth it was the best example of the typeface in use that I could find, hence its inclusion with the images below. Anyway, rather than repeating the sentiments of this text I’ll just say how excited I am to see Margaret Calvert lending her expertise to this project and reiterate a widely-held view that Henrik Kubel and Scott Williams are some of the finest typographic designers working today. Enjoy!

You’d struggle to make a big, bright, shiny Jeff Koons balloon dog anything but visually brilliant, but Parisian studio Artworklove has surely done more with it than most, making it the star of some beautifully designed invitations to the artist’s show at the Pompidou centre. The colours, the scale and the stock selected work together beautifully and make a nice introduction to what the studio’s been up to since we last posted about them in 2012, when we flagged up some great art direction using a nice Julia Roberts quip. Other cool noteworthy projects they’ve carried out of late include a great identity for French furniture and homeware site La Chance, which takes a simple icon and colour palette and twists the mark into something more dynamic.

Sometimes I don’t really “get” modern art, but I get Tracey Emin’s My Bed. She displayed it as a piece of art in 1998 after practically living in it for about a month following a bad breakup. Back then she was rake-thin and impish with an appetite for booze and fags, in that odd age where you’re left to fend for yourself but are not perhaps quite ready.

Idyllic mountainous landscapes are fine and funny domestic settings are good too, but it’s not often we see illustrators tackle the subject of intricately designed custom weaponry. We appreciate Joe Melhuish’s new project all the more for its originality. He first started drawing bizarre pockets knives that look more like the jumbo Super Soakers while researching for a commission for “quite a big pop musician,” and soon became fascinated in the way weapons might grow to become an accessory to one’s identity.

Editors' Picks

He may not grace the covers of magazines or the red carpet, but designer Simon Whybray is more famous than you think. When you’re lurking about on the internet and being entertained by seriously cool and interesting stuff – do you ever stop and think, who the hell made this? Well, occasionally, it’s Simon. Designer by day, Tumblr scroller by night, Simon spends most of his time tucked up in his bedroom overlooking Old Street on his laptop. Sound lazy? It isn’t. He’s busy creating products, GIFs, designs, logos, club nights, clothing, memes, typefaces, music…you name it. Being on the internet all day has fed Simon’s brain like a drip, and subsequently he’s now asked by big brands to come in and teach them what the hell is going on out there in the real – well, online – world.

In response to a “critical graphic design” brief from their tutor at Central Saint Martins, graphic design students Ellen Mercer and Lucy Streule spliced together a tonne of clips and heartfelt scenes where movie characters let each other know, “FYI I’m a graphic designer.”

Public art project London is Changing makes Londoners uncomfortably aware of the truths we’re perhaps trying to ignore: that our city is morphing beyond recognition, that creativity is at risk, and that for many people, it’s simply becoming unaffordable.

Welcome, podders! Fantastic episode this week featuring me, Liv Siddall, and Billie Muraben and James Cartwright from the It’s Nice That team. After a great question submitted by Hattie Stewart we chewed the fat over the latest art and design news, including the new identity for the Royal Albert Hall and the much talked-about cover for The Gentlewoman. In section two we discuss London Fashion Week, the sartorial habits of creatives, our new Workwear feature and the effect social media has on the the world around fashion week. Any comments, complaints, compliments – just get in touch via Twitter, email, or the comments box below.

There aren’t many designers out there who can count a pair of shoes with GPS tracking, a race against a 3D printer and a stained glass driverless car among their recent projects, but Dominic Wilcox isn’t just any old designer. In fact, the job title “inventor” seems to be more appropriate, given that he spends his days identifying gaps in the objects we use, and experimenting with materials to develop new and intriguing ways to fill them.

Here we are, the bloody top ten. Before you ask, yes, the Sushi Cats made it. Phew! It’s an unexpected top ten, but nevertheless an incredibly powerful one. These are the guys that you clicked on so much that they beat every single other post on It’s Nice That into the most read work of the year. Popular/best, tomato/tomato. You get the picture.

Here at It’s Nice That, 2013 saw us solidify our commitment to audio visual content with the launch of our brand new site First Broadcast. With bespoke video content, audio interviews, our weekly podcast Studio Audience, plus talks from our events, it’s a good place to lose yourself for a while engaging with some all-singing-all-dancing curated creativity (Disclaimer: No actual singing or dancing included). Here’s a look at some of the highlights…

Teenage years might be little more than a series of impassioned hobbies, angry Nirvana anthems and clumsy snogs to some, but the penultimate instalment of our top 100 means more than that to us. It’s packed full of art and design greatness! We’re like the advent calendar that you get to enjoy ten chocolate reindeer at a time! Without further ado, then, here are ten more metaphorical cardboard doors for you to rip off, you lucky sons of guns…

I had no idea I’d written quite so many posts over the last seven months, so trying to choose five of my favourite was something like placing a small child in the toy section at the Argos warehouse and telling them they would only have five things, and they couldn’t even have a look through the catalogue before choosing. Still, you asked for it, so here they are, in all of their flowery, miniature pastel-coloured glory.

This is where things get really bloody serious. The hallowed top 30 (is that even a thing?) is where the real cream of the cream (or creme de la creme to coin a new phrase that borrows from French) hang out. What delights are in store in this treasure trove of creative excellence? Who knows. Read on before I mix any more metaphors.

Trying to summarise the best of this year’s exhibitions is such a tall order that we’re really only prepared to do it once. We’ve already had a crack in this year’s Annual, so if you’d like to see what we really reckoned then you know where you can get your hands on one. Instead, here’s a bunch of brilliant shows that probably didn’t get the attention they deserved in Time Out and the papers and that. Enjoy them, they’re lovely.

Next year I turn 30, a milestone I am ignoring while all around seem hellbent on reminding me. So it is with some personal resonance that we come to the 30s, 10 posts ranging from naughty bags to not one but two Wes Anderson videos. So eyes down, and get ready to marvel at another selection of creative belters…

While Rob will use his wildcard post to turn the year into a witty personal creative narrative and Liv will undoubtedly dazzle you with her eclectic tastes, I just want to use this opportunity to bore you all to death with a bunch of comics that have made my year. Half of you probably think comics are a load of old toss, but I’ve got carte blanche to do what I want in this post, and what I want to do is force a hard-line agenda of graphic novels on the lot of you, like a Kim Jong-Un of comic art. Don’t forget to smile and clap in all the appropriate places…

Everyone loves the middle. Middle of a meal (main course), middle of a film (happy montage) and middle of a relationship (you’re not annoying each other yet). Welcome to the middle of our countdown of the best articles of 2013 and, like every other middle, it’s full of blissful joy and happiness. Read on, dear reader, read on….

Arguably the most exciting creative projects of 2013 can’t be pinned down to just one frame, so we’ve allowed them to overflow into a Review of the Year post all of their own, compiling some of the very best film, animation and moving image clips of the year. Where else would you find puppets pleasuring themselves, a crazy glimpse into the future by the Layzell Brothers (say no more) and a guide to tricky social situations narrated by Jason Schwartzman? As we thought! You need us.

I’ve heard great things from people claiming that your fifties are the best years of your life. I’m not quite there yet, but I fully intend to fill mine with copious holidays, throwing fabulous parties and flicking my silver hair over one shoulder while swigging champagne by the bottle. In celebration of that glorious vision, here are OUR fifties, from our yearly review of the top 100 posts of 2013, and my are they good. Read on…

It’s been a big year for independent publishing; either it was dying a terrible death or giving birth to incredible new titles, falling under the pressure of a global financial crisis or turning into another industry that’s somehow managed to survive. The only thing that was clear was that nobody understood what the hell was going on –especially so-called experts – and so we all had to just grit our teeth and hope that people would buy our magazines. To celebrate the sort-of-survival of ink on paper here’s some of our favourite titles to spring up anew or weather the storm of 2013.

In human ageing 61-70 are the years in which everyone you know who’s younger decides that you’ve peaked physically and mentally, meaning they speak slowly and loudly whenever they address you, ensure you’ve got a cushion at all times lest your brittle bones fracture from sitting on any hard surfaces and dismiss everything you say due to your imminent senility. So let’s hear it for these ageing has-beens. We still think they’re terrific, just remember to speak up and try to indulge their stories about the war.